Wireless local area networks (LANs), typified by IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11, have in recent years been widespread, leading to an increase in the number of wireless LAN-capable products.
Here, wireless LAN-capable products are classified into, for example, access points (hereinafter, also referred to as “APs”) and stations (hereinafter, also referred to as “STAs”) Further, communication from an AP to an STA called downlink (hereinafter, also referred to as “DL”) communication and communication from an STA to an AP called uplink (hereinafter, also referred to as “UL”) are performed.
With the increase in the number of wireless LAN-capable products, the number of STAs also increases, and thus there is a possibility that the incidence of frame (packet) collision in uplink communication will increase.
In this regard, Patent Literature 1 discloses a communication method of multiplexing UL transmission such that an STA having received a predetermined frame such as group polling from an AP transmits frames using a channel notified of through the predetermined frame. Thus, collision of UL transmission frames can be suppressed.